In this case it was the walk-in freezer at the restaurant. I don’t think it was a sponsor-made item. I think similar problems happened with other walk-in freezers previous seasons. Don’t these things have control panels or something? Earlier this season it was a fridge left open, so user error.
I know they allow a certain allotment of little cooking gadgets, I wonder if this thing qualifies.
I can’t see how some people find Fabio charming. He creeps me right the hell out every time he opens his smarmy mouth and he keeps making embarrassingly bad food decisions, particularly in quick fire.
While I also loathe Steffan, I’ll grant that the man has major cooking chops.
I was torn last night between Carla and Rad going home. Rad was a fish out of water who couldn’t lead so much as a church singalong, but Carla screwed up in making her dishes. Personally, I would have torn Rad a new one but sent Carla home, both for the failures in the kitchen and her idiotic, cookoo for cocoa puffs defense of her efforts at judges’ table.
Well, if BEING a team leader actually doesnt BUY you anything with the judges AND you have no real control over your team members AND you think some are tards AND some might throw you under the bus to get ahead in a competition well then…
Yeah, I might pass on that “opportunity” as well 
I thought Carla’s “I sent it out with love” was going to be her death knell but I think Radika got the blame for not better supervising Carla. I would have preferred to see Carla go because I think she’s only squeaking by and got lucky a couple times. She screwed up a course that she’s won praise for before, that didn’t help Ariane last week.
I don’t find Fabio charming. I think he’s funny. He’s such a stereotype it’s like a bad sitcom. But I like him in spite if it.
Right there with you. I had been wondering, actually, whether he just comes off a lot better in real life than he does on TV.
The women at Gail’s bridal shower were all (apparently) charmed by him, for instance, whereas I feel like I need to take a shower everytime his smarmy-ass face comes on screen. Bleh.
As billfish said, it’s a straight-forward risk analysis. If your team wins, as team leader you gain nothing extra for having led, you’re just one of the four or five or six who is safe. BUT if your team loses and you’re team leader, the chances are good that you’ll be the one sent home because you took ultimate responsibility for the success of the entire team. IOW, there’s no up-side to being team leader and there is a clear down-side. You may argue that “chance to shine” is an up-side, but to me it’s pretty obviously outweighed by the much more concrete chance you’ll be sent home.
I didn’t think it was gamesmanship to hang back and intentionally come in third (or worse) in the quick-fire, just common sense.
ETA: In fact, in light of that, I think it would be much better if they did the Quick Fire and then told them the next challenge was Restaurant Wars. Then people would not dial down their best efforts to avoid the leadership position, and we’d get to see the “oh, shit!” or “oh, yay!” reactions of whoever “won” the Quick Fire.
GE appliances are crap. Im not familiar with the top of the line stuff, but it can’t be made much better than the regular household stuff. I don’t understand why Top Chef hasn’t attracted a better appliance sponser by now.
I think he clearly recognizes this in himself and plays to the stereotypes deliberately, and it’s the self-awareness that makes him charming. Note that he explicitly mentioned thickening his Italian accent for his role in front of the house.
I don’t mind Carla that much. I do like Radhika, and I thought Leah should have been gone long before her. Stefan’s such a jerk, it’s almost hard to care that he can cook.
Fraggles come up in the image search for “top chef carla.”
I got the impression they aren’t actually “broken” they just have a hard time keeping up with the constant opening of the doors by team members on both sides.
What I don’t get is why Carla didn’t try to salvage her frozen yogurt using ice under the bowls like Stefan did. He seemed to have access to lots of ice, and she’d know exactly how cold that will be.
Except that everyone can count, and Restaurant Wars (IIRC) always occurs when it’s down to 4 & 4. So the more astute ones would know as much anyway.
Man, I waited forever for someone to open a Top Chef thread, then I missed it and have to work in 2 minutes.
I actually liked Carla’s statement at judge’s table until I read here - I was interpreting it as “hey, I did what i could with a bad situation, and I would be ok with going home because I realize that it was far from my best work.” It just seemed to me that she didn’t want to try and whine and complain when she knew it wasn’t great, but now I don’t know - I certainly agree she should have made a better attempt (like Stephan).
I wanted Leah to go home so freakin’ bad… she just bores the crap out of me. She sounded like she was on Valium at judge’s table.
I want the new judge to go away and never come back.
Season 2 was a 3-on-3 Restaurant Wars
I thought they had Kenmore as the appliance sponsor last season. Not that they’d be any much better, given the “mystery meat” nature of not knowing who actually made the appliance and glued a Kenmore label on it. (Most likely picks would be Frigidaire, Whirlpool or Electrolux.)
Yes, it would be nice to see them working with Sub-Zero refrigerators, Wolf ranges, Fisher-Paykal ovens and Bosch dishwashers, but overall, a mass-market brand is more likely to be successful in getting viewers thinking “Hey, I need a new stove. That one I saw on Top Chef looks like a good one. I’ll buy one of those!”
Whereas the high-end stuff will only get people wistfully thinking “Wow, that’s a nice oven, but I can’t afford it. Guess I’ll have to just get the GE that’s on sale.”
I thought the same thing. I don’t think Carla should win it all, and I would have been fine with her going home last night. But I do like how she handles herself at the judges’ table. Both times, she’s been thoughtful about what she did, what she should have done and what she learned. She’s not blamed everyone and the kitchen sink for her failures. And she’s not been overly obnoxious to the judging staff.
Like billfish678 said, had she called it “Yogurt soup” they would have slammed her for that, had she not sent out anything at all, they would have slammed her for that, too. None of her options were good. She was right, sometimes all you can do is “send it out with love.”
The new judge is just a horrible mistake.
nitpick: Season 1 had 3-3 Restaurant Wars, Season 2 did not have Restaurant Wars.
In this episode for the Restaurant Wars segment, they were not in the usual Top Chef kitchen and were at the mercy of whatever equipment was located there, including the half-assed freezer. Same with any of the other alternate kitchens they utilize.
And a bit of a disaster, IIRC. 3’s not enough to execute such a project, and I doubt they’d ever return to that equation again.
Most of my reactions to the episode have already been posted. All except…tomato water!!!
Sounds awful. It conjures for me the liquid on the plate of grade school cafeteria spaghetti. The noodles were never drained enough. Why would we asnt fish sitting in that?
